Sunday, 9 March 2014

I do not blog things like this to comfort the afflicted. I blog this to afflict the comforted.

Everywhere I go in Blogland I meet people who name the name of Christ, people who proclaim themselves to be Christians. At least eight five times out of a hundred their words and actions belie their self proclamation. In another ten percent it is their proclamation of their spiritual beliefs that belie their claim to be Christianity.

If the God you worship, if the Jesus you proclaim, is not exactly the Jesus of the Bible, the God of the Bible than, in fact, you are an idolater - you have created a God in your mind that you worship in place of the real God.

Ask any of those ninety five per cent of people who proclaim themselves a Christian (in North America) how they know they are Christians and invariably they say, "I prayed a prayer and asked Jesus into my heart."

At that point I am prone to ask them where exactly in the Bible does it say that asking Jesus into your heart makes you a Christian. That is where they begin to flounder because nowhere does the Bible say anything of the sort. In fact, the Bible rejects that assertion entirely but the level of preaching in America has reached such a dismal level, apostasy has grown so much, that most people who claim to be Christians really have no idea what the Bible really says. They have been virtually brainwashed into hell by bad Bible exegesis.

That shouldn't be surprising. Surveys show that over eighty per cent of Christians have a heretical understanding of the Trinity. Over half think that salvation is by works. Most do not understand sanctification or the atonement or justification. And, sadly, most do not understand the salvation they claim to have had but which they have never had.

More and more I am convinced that narrow road is far narrower than I ever thought. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not all inclusive. It is, on the contrary, quite exclusive.

In any event, now that I have offended most of you who claim to be members of the flock, I ask you to look at yourselves closely (2 Cor. 13:5). Be sure you are a sheep and not a deceived goat who wandered into the sheepfold.

I know, I know. I can hear you now. You are saying, "Judge not, let you be judged." Yea, well, you are taking that verse out of context and the state of biblical knowledge is such that you do not even know it.

Oh, yea, the sermon. Here it is. You won't like it but if you are going to understand the nature of salvation you need to understand the nature of depravity. Total depravity. Or, as Dr. Steven Lawson says, "Radical Depravity."